Download Aldous Huxley's Hands: His Quest for Perception and the Origin and Return of Psychedelic Science, by Allene Symons
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Aldous Huxley's Hands: His Quest for Perception and the Origin and Return of Psychedelic Science, by Allene Symons
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Psychedelics, neuroscience, and historical biography come together when a journalist finds a lost photograph of Aldous Huxley and uncovers a hidden side of the celebrated author of Brave New World and The Doors of Perception. Allene Symons had no inkling that Aldous Huxley was once a friend of her father's until the summer of 2001 when she discovered a box of her dad's old photographs. For years in the 1940s and '50s, her father had meticulously photographed human hands in the hope of developing a science of predicting human aptitudes and even mental illness. In the box, along with all the other hand images, was one with the name of Aldous Huxley on the back. How was it possible for two such unlikely people to cross paths--her aircraft-engineer father and the famous author?
This question sparked a journalist's quest to understand what clearly seemed to be a little-known interest of Aldous Huxley. Through interviews, road trips, and family documents, the author reconstructs a time peaking in mid-1950s Los Angeles when Huxley experimented with psychedelic substances, ran afoul of gatekeepers, and advocated responsible use of such hallucinogens to treat mental illness as well as to achieve states of mind called mystical. Because the author's father had studied hundreds of hands, including those of schizophrenics, he was invited into Huxley's research and discussion circle.
This intriguing narrative about the early psychedelic era throws new light on one of the 20th-century's foremost intellectuals, showing that his experiments in consciousness presaged pivotal scientific research underway today.
- Sales Rank: #522826 in Books
- Published on: 2015-12-08
- Released on: 2015-12-08
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.99" h x .79" w x 6.03" l, .81 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 280 pages
Review
“Allene Symons has written an intriguing combination of an Aldous Huxley biography, a smart daughter’s memoir of her father, and science—ranging from schizophrenia to paranormal consciousness to psychedelics. Several years ago, while going through boxes in her family’s garage, she found over one thousand photographs of hands, including Aldous Huxley’s, that her father had taken over a two-decade period. What was her aircraft-engineer father trying to discover and how did he cross paths with Huxley? The answers are fascinating and sometimes mind-bending. . . . It’s an absorbing and beguiling read.”
—LISA SEE, author of China Dolls, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, and On Gold Mountain
“What can be said about the work of Aldous Huxley that hasn’t already been told? Quite a bit, it turns out. In this compelling narrative, Allene Symons uncovers a cache of letters between Huxley and the man who turned him on to psychedelic drugs, using those documents to spin a delightful tale of two men exploring the thin line between mysticism and madness. Symons deftly blends the legwork of a journalist with the passion of a daughter fascinated by her own father’s unlikely foray into Huxley’s inner circle.”
—DON LATTIN, author of The Harvard Psychedelic Club and Distilled Spirits
“The psychedelic Sixties didn’t begin in the 1960s. That much is certain after reading Aldous Huxley’s Hands. Allene Symons, an engaging writer and reporter, discovered in 2001 that in the 1950s her father, a photographer, was friends with the writer, philosopher, poet, and satirist whose experiments with hallucinogens opened The Doors of Perception. Symons’s own explorations led to new revelations and insights about Huxley, as well as about her father. Both were ahead of their time, and their work resonates with the world today—and, of course, tomorrow.”
—BEN FONG-TORRES, former senior editor, Rolling Stone; columnist, San Francisco Chronicle; and an Emmy Award–winning broadcaster
About the Author
Allene Symons is the author of Nostradamus, Vagabond Prophet: A Novel of His Life and Time and an instructor of communications and media studies at Santa Ana College. She previously worked as a senior editor at Publishers Weekly, Drug Store News, and For the Pharmacist magazines and as general manager of Rizzoli International Bookstore in Costa Mesa, California.
Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
A lively and interesting read - recommended
By Caelisar
This book is not a dry biography of Huxley. Instead, it gives a solid high-level background of his life with a special focus on his time spent living in the Los Angeles area and his mixing with a variety of fascinating people (including the author’s father). The focus on this compelling period in Huxley’s life coupled with the autobiographical snippets from the author really make the book a pleasure to read.
Insights into the unique subculture (1950s intellectual\experimental Los Angeles) are colorful while many notable personalities (Heard, Krishnamurti, Hubbard, Janiger, Smith, Leary, the early LA Vendantists, et. al.) appear throughout the pages. It is fun to watch them weave in and out of the book. The Tuesday night get-togethers at the Huxley household could be a book in themselves. The extensive interactions between Huxley, Osmond and Smythies are documented in a readable and enjoyable manner.
This is a good read for anyone interested in the intellectual and cultural times when investigations into psychedelics were earnestly being made by practicing physicians and psychiatrists, noted men of letters, philosophers of religion, and scientific researchers. It takes place in the days prior to the cultural shifts of the 1960s when recreational usage exploded and research of this type could still be discussed and debated - even in national periodicals. It makes you wonder what would have happened if groups like the Merry Pranksters and the team at Millbrook had been a bit more subdued or erudite in their approach to these powerful tools.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
A Little Enlightenment at Your Fingertips . . .
By David W. Betterton
For minutiae lifted from the book, see below review/s. I’ll just say that if you are the kind of reader who hates adding to your list-of-books-to-read when you finish a book; if you hate the 60s drug culture and are turned off by just thinking about things like LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, and a bunch of other psychedelics, and how contemporary research is proving them to be highly effective alleviants in patient studies for PTSD, depression, terminal cancer, addiction, schizophrenia, etc.; if you don’t give a hoot about the interesting neological story behind psychedelics the word; if you are not interested in holding in your hands a magical device that will allow you at the turn of a page to participate in time travel and share in the thinking of some of the greatest minds this world has seen and how Aldous Huxley fits into it all—well, don’t buy Aldous Huxley’s Hands. I am a product of the 60s and I have to admit that during those formative years I did little reading and was a poor reader at best, so now that I find myself in my “advanced years” I am rather picky about how I spend my time and I do not bother reading anything that won’t completely suck me in. I knew about Hands, but just being about Aldous Huxley did not impel me to read it. Then I went to a book signing and after the impassioned presentation Allene Symons gave and finding out that her research had everything to do with a major part of my foggy youth, well, I was hooked. And am I glad that I went to hear her pitch. At about 2 a.m. this morning I put the book down and just sat in the quiet stillness of the wee hours, allowing the euphoria of personal enrichment to wash over me for having just completed Hands. Time well spent. So many places did I travel to; so many interesting people did I meet; so many new things did I learn—not to mention that a big gap in my life, my personal puzzle, had been filled in. I really don’t know how to describe Symons’s work. It’s not a memoir. It’s not a biography. And while she does a splendid job of reconstructing dialogue between Huxley and other notables on a real life stage she constructs for us, it is not fiction. What it is, though, is interesting. Not a boring moment to be found. Without being pedantic, it is chock-full of scholarly factual tidbits, science, history, fascinating personages, and important state-of-the-art information about present day psychological research with psychedelic drugs. Under another pen, Hands could be a most dry piece to handle. The magic here, though, is that, aside from being an intelligent and skillful writer with a sense of humor to boot, Symons has masterfully structured a personal story that weaves her childhood and her father’s lifelong obsession with hands with the lives of Aldous Huxley and a goodly number of his inner circle of famous friends and fellow travelers. That said, you may have noticed that considering the book’s title that I have not mentioned much at all about Huxley. Why? Because Hands is about so much more. He is the focus, sure, but a galaxy of worlds and people orbit him and Symons takes us to each for a historical look-see and then wraps it all up in a nice tight bundle we can walk away with. In essence, she takes us on a spiritual trip sans the drugs. The decade plus it took her to research and write Hands was a mind-expanding adventure, and she takes us right along explaining what’s what every step of the way. You will not regret reading Aldous Huxley’s Hands. But once you have finished it, though, be forewarned that you will be adding at least five or six new books by Huxley et al. to your list-of-things-to-read and printing out several of his essays you can easily find online.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
There is a great deal of speculation since many of Huxley’s papers were ...
By Julia McMichael
It is difficult to think of a writer who has had a greater impact on modern culture than the writer, Aldous Huxley. Always curious, he explored Vedanta, vegetarianism, psychedelics, hypnosis, Scientology (according to this book), the occult, meditation and eyesight healing. He had a large circle of friends who participated in these explorations. As indicative of his large circle, an aircraft engineer, Howard Thrasher became a Huxley intimate because of their mutual fascination with the human hand.||Thrasher collected photographs of hands to test a hypothesis that the hand would reveal the character or psychosis of an individual. Among Thrasher’s collection was Huxley’s photograph. Thrasher’s daughter, Symons looks at Huxley’s life through the lens of her father’s remembrances of that time. One degree of separation, if you will. There is a great deal of speculation since many of Huxley’s papers were lost in a house fire. It would be of great interest if one were to learn what the cynic Huxley himself thought of this type of book.||The book is successful, however, in painting a picture of a Hollywood where these interests were paramount in the fifties and sixties. Huxley’s books and interests had great influence in developing a la la land culture. If the reader is inclined to love hallucination, this is the book.
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